


a bleed through

by littlemaple



Category: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake - Fandom
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, No Spoilers, Somebody please help Cloud get it together, Still very much relevant though, Zack is implied but not actually mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:42:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23797873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlemaple/pseuds/littlemaple
Summary: It’s Cloud, but something about him is off. Tifa just can’t tell what it is.
Relationships: Tifa Lockhart & Cloud Strife, Zack Fair & Cloud Strife
Comments: 7
Kudos: 106





	a bleed through

**Author's Note:**

> I have just finished FF7:Remake and I cannot stop thinking about my boy Cloud. I also love his friendship with Tifa. I also enjoy seeing my favorite characters sad. So here goes.  
> Please note I haven't actually played the original game, but I do know what's going down there.  
> I do know everything about Crisis Core, though, and those events are relevant here, I guess.  
> This is spoiler-free -- but I'm not sure if it'll make much sense if you don't know what happens/happened in Crisis Core/to Cloud.  
> Anyway, inspired on the song You're Somebody Else, by flora cash.  
> Enjoy!

Tifa knows it’s Cloud. She recognizes him right away. Despite all the years, she just knows. He’s older, obviously, and he looks tired, but he still has some of that boyish charm to him. That, and the same haircut. Or lack-of, only shorter. Still as craftily messy as she remembers it.

When they talk, his voice is deeper, quieter, but still similar to her memories of it. The way he looks everywhere but to her hasn’t changed. His eyes wander and she wonders, she has so many questions. Cloud doesn’t seem to take them too well. He looks exasperated, confused, almost in pain. So she drops it. They have never been good friends, after all. He doesn’t need to tell her anything, even if she’d like to know.

He does tell her he’s SOLDIER now. Ex-SOLDIER.

Tifa wants to ask him about it and tell him about the SOLDIERs she met but, and she tells herself it’s just a coincidence, Cloud looks like he’s about to pass out when she starts speaking.

So she drops it.

There’s time and, well, Cloud must’ve heard what happened to their hometown. It’s not her favorite subject, anyway.

She tries to ignore it.

He’s a friend, a familiar face from far away, and it’s nice. It makes her feel sad in a nostalgic, comforting way.

It doesn’t last, though, the comforting part of it.

Because Cloud makes her worry. Something feels… off, in a way she can’t place.

She tells herself it’s the eyes—the mako, the intense color of it, breaking through the soft baby blues. It doesn’t look right. There’s too much of it. When the light catches his eyes just right, the blue is almost entirely gone. It’s just that dazzling green. It makes him feel almost… alien, sometimes.

But he explained that’s part of being SOLDIER, the enhancements and all. It still doesn’t feel right, but it’s something that she can deal with.

And then there’s… the things he says and the way he acts. It doesn’t seem to fit together.

He says he doesn’t _care_ when Barret is rude to him and that he wishes Wedge would leave him alone, but he doesn’t act the part. He looks almost upset when Barret yells, though he tries to hide it with a frown; and eager to listen when Wedge speaks, though his answers are always dismissive.

And he looks uncomfortable most of the time and when he doesn’t… it’s like he’s not even there.

Walking around the slums hunting odd jobs, Tifa tells him an entire story about a friend she misses from back home – that he _asked about_ – and when she turns to look at him, he’s just… sort of there, his eyes drifting, not paying attention.

“Are you… okay?” she asks, and her words heel him back. He blinks, for a second as if he doesn’t recognize her.

“Yeah. Why?”

“You’re… crying.”

It takes him off guard. He blinks more, and the electric, intense mako-green of his eyes is overpowered by the blue again, or so it seems to Tifa, standing not close enough, under the fake sunlight.

But he is crying and hadn’t noticed. The tears just fall off his cheeks gently, almost shy, and are all dried away quickly once they’re noticed.

“Oh. It’s… nothing. Don’t worry. Just… the light in my eyes.”

“Okay…”

They keep walking. They’re almost at the bar when Cloud speaks again. Tifa notices it early, the way he looks around, parts his lips and closes them again. _That’s_ familiar. A shyness she thinks he’d have grown out of but that’s still there.

“I was thinking about your story,” he says, casually, as casually as he manages.

She hums.

“About your friend. I think I miss someone too.”

She blinks.

“Oh? Who? Someone I know?”

“I don’t… think so.”

“Hm… A SOLDIER friend?”

He stops. And stares. But his eyes aren’t on her, they’re… farther, farther away. Somewhere she feels like she’ll never visit, could never visit. He grimaces and closes his eyes like he’s in pain, but when he opens them, he looks normal. Like it never happened.

“I don’t remember,” he says, and he sounds – and this surprises Tifa – he sounds scared. The words are quiet and _raw_ and brutally honest.

He stares again with those deep, aggressively green eyes, and he looks _so sad_. There’s something stirring inside of him, she can almost feel it, something she can’t place, can’t name, can’t understand.

And then it’s gone. Or hidden, or never there at all. She can’t tell.

“… what are you staring at? Something on my face?” he says, eyebrows raised, blue-greenish eyes beautiful and almost ordinary, as ordinary as they can be.

Tifa shakes her head and smiles, feeling uneasy. If Cloud notices, he doesn’t say a word.

She worries.

Tifa knows it’s Cloud. She’s just not sure it’s the Cloud she knows. She doesn’t even know what she means by it. She just knows something is not right, and she’s afraid of what it might be.


End file.
